November 28, 2016 - Turn Up The Radio

Turn Up The Radio The fifth-brightest galaxy in the sky and the closest radio galaxy to our Milky Way, Centaurus A (NGC 5128) is over 11 million light-years away from Earth—a long distance in human terms, but cosmically right in our backyard! An actively-feeding supermassive black hole at the heart of this elliptical galaxy is responsible for enormous jets of superheated material that shine brightly in X-ray wavelengths. As the jets fire out tens of thousands of light-years into space, they encounter clouds of gas and dust, compressing them and inciting the formation of new stars. The hallmark feature of Centaurus A—a thick curved belt of dust that obscures its central region—is thought to be a remnant of a collision between it and a smaller barred spiral galaxy several hundred million years ago.